


THE DATE (NSFW)

by LSRichards



Category: Addams Family - All Media Types, Adult Wednesday Addams, Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-12 22:56:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9094447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LSRichards/pseuds/LSRichards
Summary: Like many others, I was immediately entranced by Melissa Hunter's brilliant take on the Wednesday Addams character, and think it's a crime the current copyright holders can't see the value in her vision. I felt particularly bad for Wednesday after that terrible date she had in Season One, so I got her another.





	

Wednesday left the North Hollywood Starbucks after yet another disappointing internet date. This one had been a genius from Valley Village who thought her “I enjoy post mortems” meant that she was a fan of breakfast cereals.  

She turned east on Magnolia, thinking perhaps a visit to Dark Delicacies would assuage her wounded sensibilities. Inside her, inchoate rage at the idiocy of the world warred with a lurking, crushing despair at ever finding a soulmate, and she walked on beneath the rising full moon, trying to decide which she liked best.

She was passing a particularly deserted part of the struggling boulevard, all vacant lots and second-hand appliance shops, when she realized that the footsteps that had been inconsequentially distant behind her were now much closer, and were in fact walking in perfect unison with her own. She halted, turned, preparing to engage the enemy, and then she saw, and stopped. Dead.

Because he was tall, and athletically built, and seemingly young,  and was heart-breakingly gorgeous with a smile that lit up the world, and had shoulder-length, wavy hair of yellow-blond, and when he moved toward her, a dark-colored blanket draped over one arm, it was with an impossible, uncanny grace.

“Such men will never suffice for the likes of you,  _ Cheri,” _ he said, affection in his voice and eyes. “I’ve been watching your videos,” he added, stopping before her. “Do you know me?”

“Of course I know you,” she replied. “My mother read me your books in my cradle-coffin.”

“Are you engaged this evening?”

“I am not.”

“Would you like to go out with me?”

“I would.” He smiled down at her.  

“Do you trust me?” he asked. She considered.

“As someone who also knows the pain of a disappointing Broadway adaptation, I do,” she replied, and he leant close.

“Then close your eyes,” breathed the vampire Lestat, “and hold on.”

Arms around her, her feet leaving the ground, the sounds of traffic fading, supplanted by the rushing of the wind. A few moments later almost all sounds of human activity stopped, and a earthly, animal smell wafted up;  southeast then, over Griffith Park, over the zoo.

Just a few minutes later they touched down, her feet settling on asphalt, but quiet still, very, very quiet. Traffic, as always in LA, but distant.

“Open your eyes,” he said.

She opened them, and beheld… a castle?  A massive, gray building with towering spires. No, wait… tall, stained-glass windows, a bell tower… a cathedral? A gothic cathedral, in Los Angeles? And then she knew.

“The Great Mausoleum!” she gasped.

“The Great Mausoleum,” he confirmed, smiling. “Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale.” 

“But it’s private, it’s locked,” she said.

“And if you own property inside it,’ he said, producing a golden key, “Then you’re a key-holder.” Placing the key into the lock of a door at the side of the building, he opened it, swung it wide.

“Mademoiselle,” he said.

The light of the  moon streamed in through the twenty-foot-tall stained glass windows, illuminating the marble walls, the marble floors, the soaring, vaulted ceiling, and everywhere, pervading everything, the delicious scent of dying flowers.

“Not real, of course,” he said, walking in, looking up at the hipped vaults. “Dating but from the early twentieth century, and poured concrete instead of hand-hewn granite, but it is the closest you’re going to get to a fourteenth-century cathedral in metropolitan Los Angeles, and, unlike in an actual cathedral,” he added, stepping into the wide marble hallway and turning, arms outstretched, spinning  like Julie Andrews at the start of  _ The Sound of Music, _ “Absolutely and completely  _ filled _ with dead people.”

“How many?” Wednesday asked.

“Including the columbaria, over a half-million.”

“Oh,” she breathed. “You  _ do _ know how to impress a girl.”

“Come,” he said, holding out a hand, smiling. “Let me give you the tour.”

Together they walked down the marble hall, their footsteps echoing far, far into the distance, no soft surfaces to absorb the sound. They passed alcove after alcove, side-chambers off the main hall lined with crypts, each with its own stained-glass window and statuary.

“In New Orleans we have to have mausoleums,” he said, “Because the water table is so high, ground burial is impossible. Here, it’s more an affectation, or perhaps part of that mortal impulse to deny the inevitable, like embalming itself. Silly, really, when you consider the existence of—”

“Crypt spiders,” she completed.

“Yes,” he said, absurdly pleased with her.

They moved out of the main hall, turned left. “The Mausoleum is divided into terraces with botanical names,” he told her. “We entered Evergreen Terrace in the upper or newer building, and are heading west, towards the older sections.” They had reached the second-story covered bridge that linked the newer building to the older, and glancing out the mullioned windows she gasped involuntarily, for the moonlight was shining on acre after acre  of graves, graves stretching away into the distance, beautiful and serene on the rolling green hills.

“There are older or more famous cemeteries in the world,” he said, quietly appreciating her appreciation, “Highgate in London, Pere LaChaise in Paris, but for sheer scale there is nothing quite like Forest Lawn. Yes, it has its excesses—it is in California, after all—but I do think Mr. Waugh was unfairly heavy-handed with his satire. Let me show you a favorite part.”  And taking her arm, he led her into the older building.

Down they went, terrace after terrace, back in time, past World War II cenotaphs, past glass-fronted niches containing cremated remains in brass urns, all darkly patinaed with age. He pointed out to her his favorite of the urn styles: brass books, a volume for each family member, until the series was complete.

Down and down,  until they reached Carnation Terrace, the first of the stepped terraces on the western side of the mausoleum, each with a stained-glass skylight ceiling and family crypts lining one wall.

“You see why I like it,” he said, and she laughed, because each crypt was separated from its neighbors by an ornate railing of a filigree wrought iron.

“Because it is like New Orleans!” she said, clapping her hands.

“Because it is like New Orleans,” he confirmed, “A tiny taste of New Orleans in Southern California. One more thing?” He took her hand, and led her back up to the main level.

Several twists and turns later, and they were on a floor between two vaulted bays, beneath a flight of stairs, and he handed her forward,  hanging back, letting her discover it for herself.

“Ohhh....” Wednesday moaned, her fingers lacing into the pierced metal grill of the door. “Ohhh….”

“It is called the Florentine Columbarium,” Lestat said quietly behind her. “And if one appreciates mortuary architecture, it is one of the Stations of the Cross.”

It was gold. Golden marble niches, golden patina on the brass urns and plaques, moonlight gilded by its passage through a gold-and-ocher skylight,  glinting on the glass niches,  glowing through the alabaster chandeliers.

“The  _ urns…” _ Wednesday  breathed, because the enclosed space was flanked by two monstrous brass urns, each large enough to fit an intact corpse, never mind cremated remains. “I thought Edward Gorey just made such things  _ up…!” _

He moved up to stand beside her at the door. “One has far more choice in urn materials now,” he said, looking into the space, “but the restriction to brass lends a certain cohesiveness to the whole, a  _ unity _ . And Aristotle said that unity is the crucial element of art.”

“It’s  _ beautiful _ ,” she said, her throat tightening, tears coming to her eyes.

“It is beautiful,” he agreed, and then looked down at her. “And so are you, Wednesday Addams.”

Taking her hand, he led her to the left-hand bayed alcove, where a huge sarcophagus was topped by a hand-carved marble angel that was either lifting a woman to heaven or ravishing her. He spread the blanket, which Wednesday now saw was a dark burgundy color, on the hard marble floor. He sat, and she sat beside him.

“I cannot bring you over,” he said, frowning, completely serious. “I don’t know why, but some instinct tells me you have a great destiny completely separate from me.”

“I have a great many family obligations,” she said.

“Yes. I feel you will be the progenitrix of a great line. Again, I don’t know why I feel this; I just do. The world needs you in it, Wednesday, alive.”

“So I cannot become as you are.”

“No.”

“And I cannot enter your world.”

“No.”

“Any more than you can enter mine.”

“No.”

“And there is absolutely no future for us together, ” she said, her heart contracting even as other things, lower down, bloomed.

“None whatsoever,”  he said, and the moment spun out, a seeming eternity in this eternal place, until he said, “But we can still make out.” And his hand went around the base of her skull, and their mouths met, and she fell back, pulling him full-length atop her. She arched her throat and his fangs slid home, piercing her external jugular, and she moaned,  back arching,  hips wrenching so his thigh slipped between her legs, giving her the pressure she needed where she needed it, and she came, bucking, pinned, the twin points of pain sharp, piquant: the burn in the chili, the mould in the cheese, the salt on the rim.

“Lovely, lovely,” he breathed against her throat. “Thank you, darling girl. More?” and in again, stronger now, her blood pumping hard into his mouth,  her head thrown back as her hand moved down, over her abdomen, joined by his on hers as he learned her need, then his taking over, thumb grinding her clitoris, fingers hooked deep into the fibrous patch, urging come  _ on, _ come  _ on, _ come  _ on, _ the scent of the dying flowers, and O, death, sweet death, everywhere and all around, and she exploded, obliterated, her cries echoing off marble crypts from Acacia Terrace all the way up to Jasmine.

“Ahh,  _ le petit mort _ ,” she groaned, a shattered pool of pleasure on the mausoleum floor.

“Oh, Wednesday,” he groaned back. “That’s French.” And  he pushed back the sleeve of her prim black dress and bit his way up her arm from palm to bicep, following the median vein, perfectly spaced bites, each one running red, then lapped the lot with the broad of his tongue. Her hand came up, curled around his neck, and she pulled him down, opening her mouth, receiving his kiss, his tongue, and her own blood back. Another wave, huge, crushing; it built, crested, thundered over, and she was swamped, driven under, drowned.

Sometime later she surfaced, conscious of his weight next to her.

“I love you,” she said to the vaulted ceiling, a mere statement of fact.

“I love you, too,” Fact right back.

“Impossible,” she said.

_ “Impossiblé,” _ he sighed, hitting each syllable, so she sat up, smoothing her disarrayed hair, no use crying over spilt blood. Which was, in fact, spilling, dripping from the bites in her arm into the deep nap of the blanket.

“Oh, that’s a bit much,” he said, indicating the drips, and he placing the pad of his little finger under a fang he brought forth a bead of his own blood, which he applied to the punctures.

“It tingles,” she said, watching the holes close, seal, disappear.

“Mm,” he agreed, and moved to salve the punctures on her throat, but she stopped him.

“Leave them,” she said, smiling.

“As you wish.” And then: “We should get you home.”

They stood, and she picked up a corner of the blanket.

“Mind the wet spot,” he said, taking it from her.

Later, they stood in the street outside her apartment building. A fog had risen, blowing in off the Pacific.

“I know you’re seeking a mortal mate,” he told her, gently cupping her jaw, brushing her puncture holes, “But hear this: never  _ settle. _ You are superb, Wednesday, and you deserve a superb mate. He is out there. You will find him. And if he, or any man, ever harms you, I will kill him.”

“You’re so sweet,” she said. “You actually think I need your help with that.”

“And I promise you this: later, much later, when you are old and sere and withered, the great-great grandmother of that grand family, and you wish release, you call me. I will come. No matter what,  I promise you, Wednesday Addams: your orgasmic death is assured.”

Wednesday smiled. “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” she said, and he brushed her cheek oh, so gently.

“We’ll always have Glendale,” he said, and he disappeared, into the fog, and she went inside, to comb her hair, bandage her throat, cut a notch in her bedstead, and call her mom.


End file.
